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Criterion July Releases (US - DVD R1 | BD RA)

Criterion has announced The Devil's Backbone and more titles for July...

Criterion has announced their releases for the month of July. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray.

The Life of Oharu

Quote: Release Date: 9 July 2013 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: A peerless chronicler of the soul who specialized in supremely emotional, visually exquisite films about the circumstances of women in Japanese society throughout its history, Kenji Mizoguchi had already been directing movies for decades when he made The Life of Oharu in 1952. But this epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace, starring the incredibly talented Kinuyo Tanaka as an imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution, was the movie that gained its director international attention, ushering in a new golden period for him.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Introductory commentary by scholar Dudley Andrew - Mizoguchi’s Art and the Demimonde, an illustrated audio essay featuring Andrew - Kinuyo Tanaka’s New Departure, a 2009 film by Koko Kajiyama documenting the actor’s 1949 goodwill tour of the United States -New English subtitle translation -A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Gilberto Perez

Lord of the Flies

Quote: Release Date: 16 July 2013 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: In the hands of the renowned experimental theater director Peter Brook, William Golding’s legendary novel on the primitivism lurking beneath civilization becomes a film as raw and ragged as the lost boys at its center. Taking an innovative documentary-like approach, Brook shot Lord of the Flies with an off-the-cuff naturalism, seeming to record a spontaneous eruption of its characters’ ids. The result is a rattling masterpiece, as provocative as its source material.

Disc Features -New, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by cameraman and editor Gerald Feil, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Audio commentary featuring director Peter Brook, producer Lewis Allen, director of photography Tom Hollyman, and Feil -Audio recordings of William Golding reading from his novel Lord of the Flies, accompanied by the corresponding scenes from the film -Deleted scene, with optional commentary and reading by Golding -Interview with Brook from 2008 -Collection of behind-the-scenes material, featuring home movies, screen tests, outtakes, and stills -New interview with Feil -Excerpt from Feil’s 1972 documentary The Empty Space, showcasing Brook’s theater methods - Something Queer in the Warehouse, a piece composed of never-before-seen footage shot by the boy actors during production, with new voice-over by Tom Gaman, who played Simon -Trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Geoffrey Macnab and an excerpt from Brook’s book The Shifting Point

Babette’s Feast

Quote: Release Date: 23 July 2013 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast is a deeply beloved cinematic treasure. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adapted from a story by Isak Dinesen, this is the layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. Babette’s Feast combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne.

Disc Features -New 2K digital film restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -New interview with actor Stéphane Audran - Karen Blixen: Storyteller, a 1995 documentary about the author of the film’s source story, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen -New visual essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda -New interview with sociologist Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson about the significance of cuisine in French culture -Trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Mark Le Fanu and Dinesen’s 1950 story

The Devil’s Backbone

Quote: Release Date: 30 July 2013 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: The most personal film by Guillermo del Toro is also among his most frightening and emotionally layered. Set during the final week of the Spanish Civil War, The Devil’s Backbone tells the tale of a ten-year-old boy who, after his freedom-fighting father is killed, is sent to a haunted rural orphanage full of terrible secrets. Del Toro effectively combines gothic ghost story, murder mystery, and historical melodrama in a stylish concoction that reminds us—as would his later Pan’s Labyrinth—that the scariest monsters are often the human ones.

Disc Features -New 2K digital film restoration, approved by director Guillermo del Toro and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition -Audio commentary featuring Del Toro -Video introduction by Del Toro from 2010 -New interviews with Del Toro about the process of creating the ghost Santi and the drawings and designs made in preparation for the film - ¿Que es un fantasma?, a 2004 making-of documentary - Spanish Gothic, a 2010 interview with Del Toro about the genre and its influence on his work -Interactive director’s notebook, with Del Toro’s drawings and handwritten notes, along with interviews with the filmmaker -Four deleted scenes, with optional commentary -New featurette about the Spanish Civil War as evoked in the film -Program comparing Del Toro’s thumbnail sketches and Carlos Giménez’s storyboards with the final film -Selected on-screen presentation of Del Toro’s thumbnail sketches alongside the sections of the final film they represent (Blu-ray edition only) -Trailer -New English subtitle translation -A booklet featuring an essay by critic Mark Kermode

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These are all great additions but...you know what I would like to see Criterion add to their collection: the films of Chan-wook Park (Oldboy & Thirst would be additions), Sergio Leone (Criterion would do a better job with Once Upon A Time In The West than Paramount did) or more of Yimou Zhang's films (I see definitive Criterion editions of Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers & Curse of the Golden Flower).

Those director's films would be great additions to the Criterion Collection.